Friday, May 31, 2013

Ladies and gentlemen, I'm proud to announce the Coming Crisis's first fully fleshed out forum. Check it out at www.CrisisForums.org.

For those of you who are familiar, CrisisForums.org functions just like other forums such as GodLikeProductions or AboveTopSecret, and you can post your own stories / thoughts / news items there and discuss them with a group of like minded individuals seeking the truth. It's a great opportunity for the CC community to get to know one another and get involved in spreading awareness.

Lynsey and I will be hopping over there and discussing all sorts of stuff, so it's definitely worth your while. We'll probably make it our main area of communicating with all of you.

Watching the celebration at the NRA convention over the defeat of background checks was the most nauseating experience of the day.

I am not a New York gun control liberal, either. I support a shotgun for home defense, a handgun for limited conceal/carry, and an assortment of hunting rifles to balance West Virginia's exploding deer population (as evidenced by hourly collisions with cars). So, I am hardly out of the mainstream.

But, the gun safety debate is B.S. This foaming at the mouth, Obamar is coming for the guns, Nanny Bloomberg is a bad billionaire, and most despicable of all, those survivors and victims are pawns in the liberal agenda is knuckle-dragging Cretan talk.

And no matter how many times Sen. Joe Manchin tries to explain his compromise (a decent attempt thwarted by extremists), the hard right lies and foams. The repeated lies now seem like the truth, what with the likes of Sen. Kelly Ayotte telling them.

Probably the most serious miscalculation opponents make is the guest list for the NRA speaker's podium. To let the half-wit half-term quitter Sarah Palin have a microphone is to alienate the very people Republicans need to work with on future legislation. To say nothing of the other speakers.

Whoever, owing allegiance to the United States, levies war against them or adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere, is guilty of treason and shall suffer death...

Yet another round of violent thunderstorms have begun to erupt over the Central states Friday, threatening lives and property.

Many of the storms are packing strong wind gusts, hail and blinding downpours. However, a significant number of the storms have the potential to be more disruptive with power outages, property damage and flooded roadways.

The most intense storms into the evening produced tornadoes are they raced across the Central U.S. states.

While the storm system responsible for the wild weather is beginning to pick up forward speed, for some communities this is day five of the severe weather threat.

“Iranian television footage showed at least 26 TELs lined up in two rows for the event, which marked their purported delivery to the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) Aerospace Force, which operates the country’s ballistic missiles,” according to the report.

The Shahab-3 is based on a North Korean design and is capable striking Israel from Iranian territory.

“The delivery of such a large number of missile launchers demonstrates the Islamic Republic of Iran’s self-sufficiency in designing and building the strategic system and shows the Iranian Armed Forces’ massive firepower and their ability to give a crushing response to the enemy,” Defense Minister Brigadier General Ahmad Vahidi said in a report carried by Iranian state news.

This is actually spin (re: propaganda being used against Iran as an argument for a war), since even the basic GRAD rocket systems used in Gaza were easily able to overwhelm Iron Dome. And even if Iron Dome and Jericho does intercept the first waves of incoming missiles, they'll need tens of thousands of interceptors (at around $100,000 each) to fend off the combined 50-100,000 missiles ready to combat Israel.

Keep in mind, those interceptors aren't even made in Israel, but the US, and have to be shipped across the world at tremendous cost. The rockets used by Iran / Gaza / Hezbollah and so on are all home made, and cheaply so.

Israel certainly can't afford that, and the US is so bankrupt that they'd need to print/steal even more of your money as American citizens. How do you feel about your money being taken away from you to fight yet another foreign war?

So what is this article *really* saying? It's saying that Iran and other Arab nations have just as much a right to exist as Israel, and they're ready to defend that right.

And what does that mean for you and I? A massive world war in the making with many deaths, much suffering, and a region entirely devastated.

he Camcopter S-100, made by Austrian arms manufacturer Scheibel, crashed on Tuesday in southern Somalia, where African troops are fighting Islamist al Shabaab insurgents. Al Shabaab released the pictures through its English language Twitter account, boasting: 'This one will no longer be able to spy on Muslims again. So much for the empty rhetoric on the drone program!'

Unemployment has reached a new high in the euro zone, with nearly 20 million people out of work, while inflation remains well below the European Central Bank's target.

Joblessness in the 17-nation currency area rose to 12.2 percent in April, Eurostat said on Friday, marking a new record since the EU's statistics office started collecting data on the countries in 1995.

With the euro zone also in its longest ever recession since its creation in 1999, consumer price inflation was far below the ECB's 2 percent target in May, although it ticked up to 1.4 percent from 1.2 percent in April.

Marines at Camp Leatherneck in Afghanistan will lose a key daily meal starting Saturday, causing some to forgo a hot breakfast and others to work six-plus hours without refueling on cooked food, according to Marines at the base and Marine Corps officials.

The midnight ration service — known there as “midrats" — supplies breakfast to Marines on midnight-to-noon shifts and dinner to Marines who are ending noon-to-midnight work periods. It's described as one of the few times the Marines at Leatherneck can be together in one place.

The base, which is located in Afghanistan’s southwestern Helmand Province, flanked by Iran and Pakistan, also will remove its 24-hour sandwich bar. It plans to replace the dishes long offered at midnight with pre-packaged MREs, said Marine Corps Lt. Col. Cliff Gilmore, who has been deployed in Afghanistan since February.

The moves, though unpopular with many Marines on the ground and their families back home, are emblematic of the massive drawdown of American troops in Afghanistan and the dismantling of U.S. military facilities. More than 30,000 U.S. service members will leave Afghanistan in coming months as the U.S. prepares to hand responsibility for security to Afghan forces in 2014.

While no Marine at Camp Leatherneck agreed to speak on the record, many are privately angry about the hit on base morale.

Turkish police fired tear gas and water cannon on Friday at protesters occupying a park in central Istanbul, wounding scores including tourists in the harshest crackdown so far on days of anti-government unrest.

The protest at Gezi Park started late on Monday after developers tore up trees but has widened into a broader demonstration against Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan's Islamist-rooted Justice and Development Party (AKP).

Friday's violence erupted after a dawn police raid on demonstrators who had camped for days in the park in anger at plans to build a shopping mall. Clouds of tear gas rose around the area in Taksim Square, long a venue for political protest.

Suicide attacks on a French-run mine and a military base in northern Niger have shown how an Islamist threat is spreading across the weak nations of the Sahara, meaning France may be tied down there for years to come.

Regional rivalries are aggravating the problem for Paris and its Western allies, with a lack of cooperation between Saharan countries helping militants to melt away when they come under pressure and regroup in quieter parts of the vast desert.

Security officials say lawless southern Libya has become the latest haven for al Qaeda-linked fighters after French-led forces drove them from strongholds in northern Mali this year, killing hundreds.

U.S. authorities are investigating a Texas man over threatening letters containing a potentially deadly poison mailed to U.S. President Barack Obama and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a law enforcement official said on Friday.

The probe comes as FBI officials continue investigating a separate batch of ricin-laced letters sent earlier this month from Washington state to the president and four other targets, including the CIA and a military facility.

At this point, investigators do not think the two cases are connected, the source said.

Anti-capitalist demonstrators from the Blockupy movement paralysed Germany's financial center on Friday, cutting off access to the European Central Bank and Deutsche Bank's headquarters.

Protesters against Europe's austerity policies, estimated by police at 1,500 but by Blockupy at 3,000, descended in the early hours on Frankfurt's financial district to disrupt business at institutions they blame for a deep recession in euro zone countries such as Spain and Greece.

Riot police, showered with stones and paint bombs, used pepper spray to prevent the protesters breaking into the ECB. Several protesters were injured and police made some arrests, though they gave no numbers.

South Korean millers suspended imports of U.S. wheat on Friday and some Asian countries stepped up inspections after the discovery of an unapproved strain of genetically modified wheat in the United States, but stopped short of imposing import bans.

U.S. officials are racing to quash global alarm in the wake of news the strain of wheat, developed by biotech giant Monsanto Co (MON.N), had been found in an Oregon field late last month. The discovery has already prompted major buyer Japan to cancel plans to buy U.S. wheat while the European Union said it would step up tests.

South Korea - which last year sourced roughly half of its total wheat imports of 5 million metric tons from the U.S. - has also raised quarantine measures on U.S. feed wheat, while Thailand put ports on alert.

Doors on both engines of the British Airways plane in last week's Heathrow emergency landing drama had been left unlatched during maintenance, according to an official accident report.

The coverings of the two engines - called fan cowl doors - then fell off as the aircraft left the runway, puncturing a fuel pipe on the right engine, the Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) report.

But it was not known what caused the fire on the flight and that was still being investigated, the report said.

Flight BA762 was on its way to Oslo from the airport last Friday when it was forced to return to the London hub shortly after take off.

Dozens of crabs, three small sharks and scores of fish thump on the slippery deck of the fishing boat True Prosperity as captain Shohei Yaoita lands his latest haul, another catch headed not for the dinner table but for radioactive testing.

Japan's government banned commercial fishing in this area, some 200 km (125 miles) northeast of Tokyo, after a devastating 2011 tsunami and the reactor meltdowns and explosions that followed at the nearby Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant.

The plant's operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co, or Tepco, has battled since then to keep radioactive water used to cool the crippled reactor from leaking into the ground and the sea.

Dozens of crabs, three small sharks and scores of fish thump on the slippery deck of the fishing boat True Prosperity as captain Shohei Yaoita lands his latest haul, another catch headed not for the dinner table but for radioactive testing.

Japan's government banned commercial fishing in this area, some 200 km (125 miles) northeast of Tokyo, after a devastating 2011 tsunami and the reactor meltdowns and explosions that followed at the nearby Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant.

The plant's operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co, or Tepco, has battled since then to keep radioactive water used to cool the crippled reactor from leaking into the ground and the sea.

Three more people have died in Saudi Arabia from the new SARS-like coronavirus, bringing the worldwide death toll to 30, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Friday.

Saudi health officials also told the WHO of a new case in the eastern province of al-Ahsa, increasing the number of cases worldwide to 50, WHO spokesman Glenn Thomas told reporters at a news conference in Geneva.

Suicide attacks on a French-run mine and a military base in northern Niger have shown how an Islamist threat is spreading across the weak nations of the Sahara, meaning France may be tied down there for years to come.

Regional rivalries are aggravating the problem for Paris and its Western allies, with a lack of cooperation between Saharan countries helping militants to melt away when they come under pressure and regroup in quieter parts of the vast desert.

Security officials say lawless southern Libya has become the latest haven for al Qaeda-linked fighters after French-led forces drove them from strongholds in northern Mali this year, killing hundreds.

Unemployment has reached a new high in the euro zone and inflation remains well below the European Central Bank's target, underscoring just how severe a challenge EU leaders face to revive the bloc's sickly economy.

Joblessness in the 17-nation currency area rose to 12.2 percent in April, statistics agency Eurostat said on Friday, marking a new record since the data series began in 1995.

With the euro zone also in its longest recession since its creation in 1999, consumer price inflation was far below the ECB's target of just below 2 percent, coming in at 1.4 percent in May, slightly above April's 1.2 percent rate.

CHINA - Health authorities in Beijing have reported a second human infection of the H7N9 strain of bird flu in the Chinese capital.

A six-year-old boy from the Haidian district was confirmed to have been infected with the H7N9 strain according to the Beijing municipal health bureau.
The child developed symptoms on 21 May and he was sent to a hospital for medical treatment on the same day. He appeared to recover in two days and returned to kindergarten the next day.

The boy was sent to the Beijing Ditan Hospital for further medical observation after being confirmed of the H7N9 infection on Tuesday.

The United States and South Korean took part in their first large river-crossing drill in a decade today.

The exercise comes ten days after the South accused its neighbour North Korea of firing three short-range guided missiles into its eastern waters.

More than 300 U.S. soldiers from 2nd infantry division and 95 South Korean 6th Engineer Brigade soldiers built floating rafts to transport 14 tanks and 16 armored vehicles across the Imjin River in Yeoncheon.

Esterrell Simpson (pictured top right), 18, who was arrested for allegedly taking part in the brutal slaying of 30-year-old Carlos Hernandez (bottom right) in Houston last month, told a community leader that the killing was planned as part of an initiation into the Black Disciples street gang for her and another man - a former Bloods member. During the attack Hernandez was beaten, doused with gasoline and set alight, suffering burns to 92 per cent of his body.

The average U.S. household has a long way to go to recover the wealth it lost to the Great Recession, a report by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis concluded on Thursday.

The typical household has regained less than half its wealth, the analysis found. A separate Federal Reserve report in March calculated that Americans as a whole had regained 91 per cent of their losses.

Household wealth plunged $16 trillion from the third quarter of 2007 through the first quarter of 2009. By the final three months of 2012, American households as a group had regained $14.7 trillion.

Florida police officer Chad Biernacki (left) ran over 21-year-old Jessica Nystrom (right) while the woman was sleeping on a Florida beach on Tuesday. The police officer who ran over her in his pick-up truck said he felt a 'slight bump' and heard a woman swear. Florida Highway Patrol investigators found Deputy Biernacki, 30, was at fault in the accident on Miramar Beach, near Panama City.

The top ten tax deductions, credits and exclusions will keep $12 trillion out of federal government coffers over the next decade, and mostly benefit the wealthiest Americans, a Congressional Budget Office study shows.

Democrats say the study backs up President Obama's proposals to reform tax by raising revenues through limiting the amount of tax preferences for the wealthy.

More than half of the $900 billion in tax break benefits accrued in 2013 will go to the top 20 per cent of income earners, the non-partisan CBO said.

The family of murdered soldier Lee Rigby has appealed for calm and an end to attacks in the wake of his death.

In a statement following the opening of an inquest into the killing of the 25-year-old, the family said: "We would like to emphasise that Lee would not want people to use his name as an excuse to carry out attacks against others.

"We would not wish any other families to go through this harrowing experience and appeal to everyone to keep calm and show their respect in a peaceful manner."

This weekend the UK Independence party (Ukip) will enter a new stage in its strategic evolution. In a television broadcast the party, already the most successful challenger to the main parties in postwar English politics, will launch an invasion of Labour's working-class heartlands. With a growing war chest, Ukip plans to take its message direct to blue-collar communities in red territory. The idea, Leader Nigel Farage has explained, is not complex: "Gun for Labour".

At first glance, this seems bizarre. Conventional wisdom holds that the rise of Ukip has come at the expense of Cameron's Conservatives. So why go after Labour? The reasons are twofold.

First, for some time the so-called clowns of British politics have been pointing to vulnerabilities within the Labour base. One member of their high command told us: "The low-hanging fruit for us are not former Tories, but people who have traditionally and culturally always been Labour."

Human rights lawyers are not famous for their sense of humour. So it was something of a surprise to learn that the sour-faced solicitor Phil Shiner lists comedy as one of his hobbies.

For the past decade, Shiner has made a handsome living suing the British taxpayer — at the British taxpayers’ expense.

Shiner is head of the Birmingham-based Public Interest Lawyers (PIL) — not to be confused with the post-punk band Public Image Limited (PiL), put together by Johnny Rotten after the self-immolation of the Sex Pistols.

Rotten once starred in a movie called The Great Rock ’n’ Roll Swindle. If Shiner is ever immortalised on the silver screen it should be called The Great Human Rights Swindle.

Britain's consumer watchdog must get tough on unscrupulous short-term lenders that target low earners with loans they cannot afford to repay, a British parliamentary committee said on Friday.

Britain's Public Accounts Committee (PAC) said bad practices by some of these firms were costing already hard-pressed borrowers at least 450 million pounds a year.

So-called payday lenders, which offer loans that are repaid when borrowers get their wages, have grown rapidly in Britain as banks cut back on short-term credit after the 2008 financial crisis. But they have been criticised for charging sky-high interest rates and for shoddy treatment of customers.

Russia is scheduled to deliver the S-300 anti-aircraft missiles to Syria next year, two Russian newspapers reported on Friday, rejecting claims the missiles had already been transferred to the regime of President Bashar Assad, according to AFP.

The Vedomosti cited a Russia defense source as saying it was unclear if the weapons would be delivered to Syria this year, while the Kommersant quoted a source as saying the delivery was only planned for the second quarter of 2014.

For global consumers now on high alert over a rogue strain of genetically modified wheat found in Oregon, the question is simple: How could this happen? For a cadre of critics of biotech crops, the question is different: How could it not?

The questions arose after the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced Wednesday that it was investigating the mysterious appearance of experimental, unapproved genetically engineered wheat plants on a farm in Oregon. The wheat was developed years ago by Monsanto Co to tolerate its Roundup herbicide, but the world's largest seed company scrapped the project and ended all field trials in 2004.

The incident joins a score of episodes in which biotech crops have eluded efforts to segregate them from conventional varieties. But it marks the first time that a test strain of wheat, which has no genetically modified varieties on the market, has escaped the protocols set up by U.S. regulators to control it.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said on Thursday Moscow was still committed to sending him advanced anti-aircraft weapons, although a source close to the Russian defense ministry said the missiles had yet to arrive.

The prospect of the missiles arriving is a serious worry for Western and regional countries opposing Assad which have called on Moscow not to send them.

The S-300 missiles would make it far more dangerous for Western countries to impose any future no-fly zone over Syrian air space, and could even be used to shoot down aircraft deep over the air space of neighbors like Israel or Turkey.

In what has become an annual ritual, the United States on Thursday kept Cuba on its list of "state sponsors of terrorism" and Havana reacted angrily, calling it a "shameful decision" based in politics, not reality.

Cuba said in a statement that the U.S. government was pandering to the Cuban exile community in Miami against its own interests and the wishes of the American people.

"It hopes to please an anti-Cuban group, growing smaller all the time, which tries to maintain a policy that now has no support and doesn't even represent the national interests of the United States," said the statement issued by Cuba's foreign ministry.

A 33-year-old Michigan woman and convert to Islam has been killed in Syria while fighting with opposition forces against the government of President Bashar al-Assad in the country's civil war, her family said on Thursday.

The woman's aunt told Reuters that the FBI had informed her on Thursday afternoon of the death of her niece, Nicole Mansfield of Flint, but said she did not have the details of how she died.

"I'm just devastated," said the aunt, Monica Mansfield Speelman. "Evidently, she was fighting with opposition forces."

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said on Friday that cyber threats posed a "quiet, stealthy, insidious" danger to the United States and other nations, and called for "rules of the road" to guide behavior and avoid conflict on global computer networks.

Hagel said he would address cyber security in his speech on Saturday to the Shangri-La Security Dialogue in Singapore and the issue was likely to come up in a brief meeting with Chinese delegates on the margins of the conference.

"Cyber threats are real, they're terribly dangerous," Hagel told reporters on his plane en route to the gathering. "They're probably as insidious and real a threat (as there is) to the United States, as well as China, by the way, and every nation."

The remaining suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings has recovered enough to walk and assured his parents in a phone conversation that he and his slain brother were innocent, says his mother.

Meanwhile, the father of a Chechen immigrant killed in Florida while being interrogated by the FBI about his ties to the slain brother maintained that the US agents killed his son 'execution-style'.

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19, walked without a wheelchair to speak to his mother last week for the first and only phone conversation they have had since he has been in custody, Zubeidat Tsarnaeva told the Associated Press.

The father of Ibragim Todashev, who was shot by an FBI agent a week ago while being quizzed over his links to the Boston bombers, revealed the extent of his son's injuries in gruesome photographs of his dead body today.

Outspoken Abdul-Baki Todashev called for an investigation and possible legal action against the agent involved at a press conference in Moscow where he showed the images of his son's body lying in a morgue with up to seven gunshot wounds, including one to the back of the head.

His angry calls for justice came as a report claimed the 27-year-old native Chechen was unarmed in the clash with a federal agent in Florida on May 22.

The Tories are to demand a new ‘red card’ system so that national parliaments can block unwelcome EU laws.

As part of David Cameron’s bid to renegotiate the UK’s relationship with Brussels, Foreign Secretary William Hague will today reveal the first concrete demand for reform of the European Union ahead of an in-out referendum in 2017.

In a hard-hitting speech, Mr Hague will call for national parliaments, such as the House of Commons, to be able to overrule legislation proposed by the European Commission if enough legislatures call for it to be thrown out.

Mr Hague will say that the European Parliament has ‘failed’ to introduce democratic accountability to the EU.

The United Nations urged Syria on Wednesday to cease heavy weapons attacks on civilians in the rebel-held town of Qusair, in a heated debate that underlined deep divisions among powers even as they seek to convene peace talks in the coming weeks.

The UN Human Rights Council adopted a resolution brought by Qatar, Turkey and the United States, but Damascus and allies Russia and Iran warned that the condemnation could undermine peace efforts to resolve the two-year conflict.

The 47-member Geneva forum voted 36 states in favor, one (Venezuela) against and eight abstentions. Two delegations were absent from the talks while both China and Russia have only observer status.

Syrian President Bashar Assad told Al-Manar TV on Thursday that “there is pressure by the people to open a new front on the Golan.”

“Even among the Arab world there is a clear readiness to join the fight against Israel,” he added in his interview with the Hezbollah TV station.

Assad stated that Hezbollah is involved in fighting the Israeli enemy and its agents in Syria and Lebanon, according to the text of the interview on the Al-Manar website. He attributed the failure of the Syrian opposition to its dependence on outside funding and said that it failed to create a real rift in the country.

EUROPE is reining in its planned financial transactions tax (FTT), cutting back the level of the tax and limiting its scope dramatically after leaders realised it could do enormous damage to the economy.

The FTT is now likely to affect just share trades at first, rather than bonds and derivatives as originally planned, and at a rate of 0.01 per cent per trade – a tenth of the initial proposal.

The tax will still damage stock prices and make it more expensive for businesses to raise capital, but the damage will be much lower than feared.

BAGHDAD, May 30 (Reuters) - Iraq foiled an al Qaeda plot to use tanker trucks packed with explosives to attack a key Baghdad oil facility, a senior security official and oil sources said.

The security official declined to name the facility because the investigation was underway but oil ministry officials said the security forces were on high alert following a spate of attacks on a northern pipeline.

Protecting infrastructure for the world's fourth largest oil reserves is crucial for Iraq as it rebuilds an industry battered by years of war following the 2003 U.S.-led invasion and sanctions against former ruler Saddam Hussein.

IAIN Duncan Smith reacted with fury yesterday after the European Commission said it would take Britain to court in order to ensure EU migrants enjoy equal access to UK welfare payments.

The work and pensions secretary said he would fight “every step of the way” to maintain the current system, which imposes additional eligibility requirements on non-UK nationals who attempt to claim British benefits. He said he was willing to make the case in person at the European Court of Justice.

EU commissioner Laszlo Andor argues that the policy, introduced in 2004, is discriminatory and restricts freedom of movement. He believes all EU nationals who are in the UK should be eligible for benefits, even if they are not officially registered as resident.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said in an interview broadcast on Thursday that Russia remained committed to military deals signed with Damascus before the outbreak of conflict in the country.

Asked by Lebanon's Al-Manar television about delivery of Russian S-300 air defence missiles, Assad said: "The contracts with Russia are not linked to the crisis and Russia is committed to implementing these contracts."

"Everything we have agreed on with Russia will take place, and part of it has already taken place," he said.

A growing conflict over land ownership in Brazil's farm belt turned bloody on Thursday when an Indian was shot dead during the violent eviction of some 200 natives from a disputed property owned by a former congressman.

The Terena Indians refused a court order to leave the cattle ranch which they invaded two weeks ago. A federal agency designated the ranch as ancestral native land in 2010, but a local court ruled last year that it belonged to the farmer.

The Indians threw stones at riot police who fired tear gas to dislodge the occupiers from the 17,000-hectare property in the southern state of Mato Grosso do Sul, which produces soy and corn for export.

Authorities intercepted a threatening letter addressed to U.S. President Barack Obama that was similar to ones sent to New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, the Secret Service said on Thursday.

Letters sent to Bloomberg and his gun control group contained material believed to be the deadly poison ricin and contained a reference to gun control, New York police said on Wednesday.

A Secret Service official said the letter sent to the White House was similar but did not elaborate. The White House mail screening facility turned it over to the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force, the Secret Service official said on condition of anonymity.

The Pakistani Taliban will avenge the group's No. 2 leader, who was slain Wednesday in a drone strike, and won't listen to government peace initiatives, a spokesman said Thursday.

Ehsanullah Ehsan, the group's spokesman, told CNN the group holds the Pakistani government responsible for the death of Wali-Ur Rehman Mehsud.

Rehman is one of seven people slain when a drone struck a target near the town of Miranshah, according to a local official and an intelligence official. The target is in the North Waziristan district of Pakistan's tribal region -- a rugged area with a significant population of militant groups.

People in the central United States suffered through more severe weather Thursday -- in the form of torrential rain, golf-ball-size hail and damaging winds, including a few reported tornadoes -- and braced for even more storms.

Tornado warnings were issued at one point or another Thursday afternoon for portions of Arkansas, Illinois, Kentucky, Wisconsin and Oklahoma. Just 10 days ago, Oklahoma was in the cross hairs of a powerful tornado that left 24 dead.

Such warnings go out when witnesses or radar indicate a tornado. The National Weather Service, in fact, noted there were reports of tornadoes in at least seven communities in western Arkansas -- as far west as Polk, as far south as Garland County, and as far north as Oden.

Despite repeated police efforts to disperse them, thousands held a sit-in for a third consecutive night in the city's main commercial district to protest a government-backed shopping center project.

Police deployed tear gas earlier Thursday at Taksim Gezi Park. They also removed tents and sleeping bags used by protesters, who are trying to prevent bulldozers from entering the park to take down trees.

Demonstrators disapprove of plans to rebuild old Ottoman barracks and create a shopping arcade.

A Chicago man was sentenced Thursday to 23 years in prison for attempting to set off what he thought was a bomb on a crowded street near Wrigley Field in 2010.

The plot was thwarted as the result of an undercover FBI operation.

Sami Samir Hassoun, 25, was arrested shortly after midnight on a weekend night in mid-September 2010 after placing a backpack in a trash container in an area crowded with bars and restaurant patrons, authorities said.

Syria is already awash with weapons. For many living there, conflict has become a sad fact of life and a heartbreaking phone call to hear the news of the death of a loved one to violence is all too common.

For more than two years, Syrians have watched as their country has tumbled into a state of bloody civil war. As the fighting has engulfed towns and cities across the country, an estimated 80,000 people have been killed, and more than twice as many have been injured. At least 1.5 million people, many wearing just the clothes on their back, have fled and sought refuge in neighboring countries, according to the United Nations.

Monday's decision by the European Union to lift the arms embargo on Syria could have devastating humanitarian consequences if it leads to any EU member sending arms or ammunition. Thankfully, no EU government has actually said it will do so for now. If it did, it would be far more likely to encourage an escalation of the violence, rather than do anything to end this brutal conflict.

Syrian state-run television reported Thursday that forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad killed three Westerners, including an American woman and a British citizen, who it claims were fighting with the rebels and were found with weapons.

Syrian TV identified the woman, releasing what it claimed were images of her Michigan driver's license and U.S. passport. It also released what is said was the name and passport of a British citizen. It did not identify a third person who it claimed was a Westerner.

The report said the three were ambushed in their car in the flashpoint province of Idlib in northwestern Syria, where government forces have been battling rebels for control.

The Institute of Vulcanology warned that the eruption could intensify with ash rising as high as 1000 to 2000 metres, posing a threat to air traffic at Guatemala's international airport.

"Ash could spread over Guatemala City due to the direction of the wind," the country's disaster response office said in a statement.

The last major eruption of Pacaya, in May 2010, claimed the life of a television journalist, drove thousands of people from their homes and forced the closure of the Guatemala City airport for five days.

The Health Ministry received a report, Wednesday, about a big brown-and-white dog infected with rabies, that was seen wandering around a spring outside the Golan Heights community of Ani'am.

The ministry ask that anyone who may have come in contact with a stray animal in the area or who has animals that may have come in contact with a stray in the area or was wounded between May 19th and the 29th to call the health office in Tiberias at (04) 671-0300 or the nearest health office to one's residence.